mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Basketball offers. As expected, they went out to Keita Bates-Diop and Devin Booker on Friday. Neither dropped immediately but both made encouraging noises. Booker gave various sites a variation on this quote:

Where does Michigan rank among the schools who have offered you or otherwise contacted you?

Michigan is definitely a top runner. I don’t know about an exact rank, but they’re definitely going to be there throughout the whole recruiting process. They’re up there.

I got all excited about the version of the quote($) he gave to Rivals that called Michigan "a strong frontrunner" and I took that to mean they were the front-runner, but the overall picture is more circumspect than that. Booker seemed taken aback when UMHoops asked if he was committing this summer. Booker's verging on five-star status—31st to Rivals, 23rd to ESPN, 29th to Scout—everywhere and would be a big pickup.

As for Bates-Diop, the vibe seems to be Michigan or Purdue and somewhat soon.

"I talk about perseverance," Mealer said. "I talk about the things that come from hard work, about accepting challenges rather than avoiding them. For me, that's about faith. Having a tragic thing happen, but remaining faithful."

Mealer and his family -- including part of the family he's come to know in the Michigan football program -- hosted and took part in the David Mealer Memorial Classic on Monday. In its third year the golf tournament has raised more than $20,000 for various charities and medical causes, and its designated beneficiaries this year are the emergency room department of the Fulton County Health Center in Wauseon and Athletic Angels, a charitable foundation run by former Michigan strength and conditioning coach Mike Barwis; the charity's emphasis this year is to provide personal training for individuals with paralysis.

26 of the 120 golfers were Michigan football players, a veritable festival of shots shanked backwards off the tee. You will tear up on senior day this year when Brock is standing next to Elliott. This is a warning.

LEAVE THE FALCONS ALONE. Those Peregrine falcon chicks that picked up the first names of various Michigan football coaches had an accident:

Three of the four newly hatched peregrine falcon chicks that live atop University of Michigan Hospital are in rehab after dropping from their nest onto a landing above the second floor of the hospital.

The chicks appear to be unharmed but are in rehab so specialists can help them develop flying muscles, said Michigan Department of Natural Resources Specialist Christine Becher.

If I see them at my next physical therapy appointment I'll advise them to follow the example of Yost and adopt the last names of the various coaches. No one has actually given name X to chick Y yet, but it's logical to assume that the one who didn't fall off the building is the one who took the last name of the coach, not the first name. None of this would have happened if these chicks were named uniformly.

Fascinating, captain. Holly asks "what is the Big Ten equivalent of PAAAOWL, anyway?" And… well, what is it? The best I can come up with is saying something mean about Jim Delany.

“It’s unbelievable,” Di Giuseppe told New England Hockey Journal from his hotel room in Toronto, where he is attending the NHL Scouting Combine this week. “When you start looking at NCAA programs, one school stands out: the University of Michigan Wolverines. Growing up, I never really looked at going there, but as time went by, and I began to look at maybe taking a different route, there was no other choice for me.”

A junior year maybe? He is very young.

Was there a question about this? The GLI has been extended to 2014 under the usual format (Michigan Tech/Michigan/Michigan State/Wildcard), something I've never seen reported before. Accompanying quote:

"The Great Lakes Invitational tournament has become a long-standing tradition with our program and other schools in the state," Michigan athletic director Dave Brandon said in a statement. "We are pleased that this annual holiday tournament will continue for the foreseeable future."

Not to be paranoid, but does this make anyone else think the tournament might either be going away or facing changes in the somewhat near future? Of late the GLI has acted as a bridge between Michigan Tech, the one in-state school not in the CCHA, and the rest of the state. When the various Michigan schools are spread across three conferences, it seems like Wildcard should always be Ferris or Western or Northern or Lake State and at that point we might want to start talking about a larger tournament.

I've mentioned this before. It's fun to Play For Stuff and now there's a need for the Michigan schools to get greater exposure to each other. The GLI could morph into the end of that tourney.

Proposed format reminder:

Grab either BGSU or Notre Dame for an eighth team.

Form two groups of four with MSU and M split, Ferris and WMU split, and fill out the groups with the WCHA and honorary Michigan team. Example group: M, WMU, NMU, BGSU. Example group two: MSU, Ferris, LSSU, MTU.

Each team plays two games against each group opponent—the WCHA teams in the same division can have an early-season conference series double as their Michigan Cup series. Top two in each group advance to the GLI.

GLI is as is, with group winners avoiding each other in the first round.

The GLI trophy, whatever it is, now means something pretty cool. You could rescue the Mason Cup from oblivion if you want. (I'd prefer to not continue glorifying a man who spent his career trying to murder entertaining hockey no matter how nice and successful he was, but you may not be so opposed.) Michigan also has six of their 14 nonconference games set every season. The only reason not to do it is a slight amount of money Michigan and Michigan State won't be getting by loading up their nonconference schedules with the Bentleys of the world. Yay money!